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Welcoming Week Reads

Welcoming Week takes place September 15-24 and encourages communities to bring together immigrants, refugees, and native-born U.S. residents to raise awareness of the benefits of welcoming everyone. To better understand the experience of immigrants and refugees, you can check out these books (a mix of both fiction and nonfiction) from your local library:

The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen – A new collection of stories, written over a 20-year period, which explores questions of home, family, immigration, the American experience and the relationships and desires for self-fulfillment that define our lives.

Panic in a Suitcase by Yelena Akhtiorskaya – Follows a family of Russian immigrants who move to Brooklyn and discover that the lines between the old world and the new are very blurred and the things they thought they had left behind are readily available in America.

Refugee Hotel by Gabriele Stabile & Juliet Linderman – Accompanied by candid photos and unforgettable stories and oral histories, a photographer and journalist present nine portraits of modern-day refugees on their way to becoming Americans, documenting their first night in the U.S. to their triumphs and struggles as they adjust to a new way of life.

Learning to Die in Miami: Confessions of a Refugee Boy by Carlos Eire – Presents the story of the author’s exile in America, where his brother and he relocated as youths from their revolution-torn home in Cuba, struggled with the loss of their cultural identity, and acclimated to American culture.

My Two Italies by Joseph Luzzi – A child of Italian immigrants and scholar of Italian literature paints an intimate portrait that blends together history and the unusual to show how his “two Italies” join and clash in unexpected ways.

The Book of Unknown Americans by Cristina Henríquez – Moving from Mexico to the U.S. when their daughter suffers a near-fatal accident, the Riveras confront cultural barriers, her difficult recovery, and her developing relationship with a Panamanian boy.